10/12/2009
Three governments team up to clear plugged culvert
Vancouver, WA – Three local governments – Clark County, the city of Vancouver and Clark Regional Wastewater District – worked together last week to clear a plugged culvert before the onset of rainy weather.
All three governments are members of Grounds, Equipment and Maintenance, or GEM, a regional cooperative that allows local governments to share equipment as a way to save public dollars.
The culvert, which runs under Northeast 99th Street between Highway 99 and Northeast 25th Avenue, was at least 90 percent filled with sediment.
Scott Wilson, Clark County Public Works operations superintendent, said the county wanted to clear the culvert without pushing sediment into a pond north of Northeast 99th Street, but it lacked the equipment to get the job done.
Enter the city of Vancouver, which has a flusher truck that can pump up to 80 gallons a minute. The city also provided two vacuum trucks that, when used with a county vacuum truck and a fourth one from Clark Regional Wastewater District, were able to suck up the sediment as it was flushed from the culvert.
“They were able to pull out at least a hundred yards of sediment,” Wilson said. “This is something we would have never been able to handle ourselves in-house.”
The mini-fleet of four vacuum trucks made about 25 runs to an Orchards disposal site during the two-day operation, last Wednesday and Thursday.
Wilson said the county will pay the city for its labor and equipment and will provide some type of service to the sewer district, such as paving, as compensation.
“Everybody was very supportive,” he said. “They wanted to jump in to help out.”
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